Shaboozey's Outlaw Cherie Lee Concept Album Reviewed
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- Shaboozey released a 20-track concept album, "The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales," paired with a same-name three-issue comic
- The album features narration by Jamie Foxx, Teyana Taylor and Sam Elliott, framed by cinematic, Pink Floyd-tinged orchestral interludes
- Shaboozey's earlier single "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" surpassed 1.75bn Spotify streams and at one point tied the record for longest-running US No 1
- His preceding album "Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going" remains on the US chart 112 weeks after release
- Shaboozey earned three Country Music Awards nominations, at an event the source describes as historically resistant to artists of colour
- Guest features include rapper Gunna on "High Noon," Kehlani on ballad "Bullets and Blades," and Orville Peck closing with the traditional cowboy ballad "Streets of Laredo"
- The review frames the record as part of a concept-album lineage running through Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads and Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger
Why it matters: With over 1.75 billion Spotify streams on "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," Shaboozey's 20-track concept album tests whether his crossover can build long-term country credibility, even as he pulls R&B and hip-hop collaborators — Kehlani, Leon Bridges, Gunna — into a genre rooted in outlaw tradition.
